About six months later, Mr Emerson made another appointment to see him. As soon as Rex saw it, he had his secretary cancel it. The next day Mr Emerson showed up at his office and forced his way in.

“What do you think you’re doing, not seeing me?”

Rex looked at him coolly from behind his desk. Without saying anything he stood up and gestured at the chair on the other side of his desk. A slow motion with his hand below the desk and he spoke into the intercom, “See if you can reschedule my next appointment. I might be busy for a while.” Then to Mr Emerson who had sat down in the chair but was obviously unhappy. “I didn’t want to see you because that was our agreement. No more contact.”

“Well, you can hang all that!” He stood up and tried to menace Rex from across the desk. “You took it, didn’t you?”

“I have taken nothing. If you mean that little keepsake that you, eh, deposited a while back-“.

“Of course I mean that!”

“Calmly. And quietly. Otherwise I’ll call security and have you thrown out.”

“You just try it!”

Rex sat and looked at him, weighing the other man. “I’d rather just talk to you.”

Mr Emerson sat back down. “Then start talking. Where is it?”

“The…deposit?”

“Yes! Of course.”

“As far as I know, it’s still there. I haven’t taken it. Why? Is it gone?”

“Yes.”

“Look, I warned you. I said that I wasn’t running a bank. That was the risk you took. Someone else must have dug it up and left with it.”

“Well, maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Well. We can’t find the site.”

It was all clear to Rex now. “Oh. I guess that does happen sometimes. It is a Labyrinth. Easy to get lost in.”

“Look, we took careful notes. We made all of the right turns. We just can’t…get back there.”

“Not my problem.”

“If we think that you took it, then it becomes your problem.”

Rex took a moment to think about this. His first thought was that it would be best if he could keep the situation calm. His visitor seemed like he couldn’t help from being emotional about this. If he kept blowing up, the whole thing could become very bad.

“Look, I was very specific with our agreement. You wanted a place to hide something and I have such a place. I told you that I wasn’t going to be responsible for whatever was hidden. That’s what you agreed to, right?”

“We didn’t think you’d try and steal it!”

“And I haven’t. Look around at this office. Look at this whole building. Notice the wealth? I don’t really need to steal money, now do I?”
Mr Emerson gave a nasty smile. ”I wonder if your accountant would say the same thing.” That hit scored. “Oh, yes. We’ve become aware of your financial situation. We think you might very well have needed to steal that money. And we want it back.”

“You want it back?”

“Yes. And we’re not all that particular if it comes from that package or from your own personal accounts.”

A light dawned for Rex. “Wait a minute. Is this your whole game?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s simple. You find a business man with a thin wallet. You get him to hold onto something for you, making sure that he doesn’t know what it is. Then you come back and tell him that it’s missing. He feels threatened and ponies up. The great thing for you is that he never got to see what was actually missing.”

“That would be a good game. Maybe next time we’ll try that instead of actually hiding the money.”

Rex took a long look at him, trying to get the full measure of the man. “I think you’re lying to me.”

There was a long pause. Mr Emerson glanced upward as if to study the ceiling. “It’s a shame that you’ve responded this way. It would be a real shame if something happened to your wife.”

Rex laughed. “That shows that you’ve never met her.”

Mr Emerson looked surprised and then laughed along with him. Then he took a closer look and noticed that a gun had found it’s way into Rex’s hand. This gun was pointed at his chest.

“Mr Emerson, I think it’s time you left. I’ll tell you one more time that I didn’t take the deposit. To the best of my knowledge, it’s still in there. I suggest that you keep looking for it. If you show up here again…it will be bad for you. I’m going to instruct my security that you’ve threatened me and they should treat you as dangerous. Those boys are anxious and a little bored. If I were you, I wouldn’t give them any excitement. Do you understand?”

During this speech, the visitor had been doing nothing but staring at the gun. Now his head rose and they locked eyes. “Yes. I understand. I will leave now.” As he moved towards the door, it opened and a pair of large men entered. He turned and looked back at Rex. “Good luck.”

“Please, escort him out of here.”

They left and Rex sat back down at his desk. He waited a moment to make certain that Emerson was truly gone. Then he turned to his computer and pulled up a secured intranet site. On the screen was the one and only current map of his Labyrinth. His gaze wandered over to an oddity.

In truth, Rex knew that the ‘package’ hadn’t been disturbed. It was still resting peacefully. No one could get to it. One of the first weekly changes had completely sealed off that part of the maze.

He leaned back in his chair and tried to decide how long he should let it sit there until he finally went out and inspected it. After a moment he pulled up his desk calendar. One full year ought to do it. With that done, Rex turned back to his regular work.